Husbands of the world, take notes.
On Sunday, John Legend won at the Creative Arts Emmys for co-producing Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert, becoming one of the youngest EGOT winners ever and the first African-American man to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony — but he immediately put the spotlight right on his wife Chrissy Teigen.
“We inspire each other,” Legend, 39, told reporters of his marriage to Teigen, 32, after accepting the award. “She inspires my songs, she inspires me to want to be a better husband and a better father. We support each other fully in everything that we do. I root for her in her career and everything she’s doing. And I expect that she’ll be up here winning Emmys herself for all the awesome work that she does.”
“She’s such a dynamic, vibrant personality, and I’ve fallen in love with her a long time before the rest of America did,” he added. “But now America’s fallen in love with her too, and she inspires me every day.”
Legend admitted he had never even imagined achieving EGOT status when he embarked upon his career. (He now boasts a whopping 10 Grammys to his name, took home an Oscar in 2015 for his song “Glory” featured in Selma and won a Tony in 2017 for his role as a co-producer for the production of Jitney.)
“When I got into the music business, it was a dream of mine to win Grammys and have plenty of success as a musician, sell lots of records, tour around the world as a performer,” he said. “But I never had a dream of winning an EGOT — I didn’t know what that was at the time. I think the projects that we’ve done to get the EGOT have really been huge collaborative efforts. I’ve worked with Ava DuVernay, Common, the whole team at Selma to write the song ‘Glory’ — couldn’t have done it without them making such a powerful, beautiful film.”
“But tonight, it’s about Jesus Christ Superstar,” he continued. “The reason why we won tonight is because, first of all, Andrew [Lloyd Webber] and Tim [Rice] created some beautiful work, and we had the privilege performing that on television. … The idea of really believing in this powerful medium of live music and live performance to bring the country together to talk about something on television … all these people came together to make a really beautiful production. We’re so grateful for it.”
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Legend, who played Jesus in the NBC live production, is also nominated for outstanding actor in a limited series or movie, which will be announced during the Primetime Emmys next week.
On Sunday night, Teigen celebrated her husband’s accomplishment with a video of him adding his brand new Emmy to his trophy wall. After Legend climbs on a piano stool to place the award on the top shelf, Teigen declares, “Perfect.”
In a nod to the children’s show Arthur — whose aardvark protagonist Legend has been compared to — Teigen captioned the post, “And I say hey, what a wonderful kind of day.”
The 70th Primetime Emmy Awards, hosted by Saturday Night Live‘s Michael Che and Colin Jost, will air live on NBC from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Sept. 17.
